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Available On-Demand Event

2012 High Performance Virtual Summit

High Performance Virtual Summit

This year's summit on “Creating Real Change” gives you the opportunity to learn from leaders in healthcare and industries who will share their experiences and perspective on improvement and transformation with an emphasis on what really works.

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New White Paper

Enterprise Risk Management: Proof or Promise?

There is overwhelming consensus among financial services executives that the current risk environment has become significantly more complex, dynamic, and difficult to navigate. Some new mandates are expensive and cut into margins and profitability, so there is a real motivation to not only comply but to more effectively manage the response and cost.

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New Article

AMN Healthcare: Providers Re-engineering Healthcare for Greater Efficiency

With healthcare reimbursement becoming tighter and patients expecting more from their providers, hospitals and other health systems are seeking ways to change processes and become more efficient.

Click here to read article

Healthcare Articles

April 4, 2012
Providers Re-engineering Healthcare for Greater Efficiency

By: Debra Wood, RN, contributor, AMN Healthcare
With healthcare reimbursement becoming tighter and patients expecting more from their providers, hospitals and other health systems are seeking ways to change processes and become more efficient.

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March 8, 2012
Adapting to Disruptive Change: Key Survival Skills

By: Ron Wince, President and CEO, Guidon Performance Solutions – Posted in Executive Insight
The specter of wholesale disruption in healthcare is no longer a storm cloud gathering on a distant horizon. That swirl is directly overhead and hospitals and other providers are struggling to cope with gale force winds that may threaten some institutions very survival.

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March 8, 2012
6 Survival Skills for Healthcare’s “Era of Disruption”

By: Ron Wince, President and CEO, Guidon Performance Solutions – Posted in Becker's Hospital Review
Ask any healthcare leader to name something that isn’t changing in their world these days, and they’d be hard pressed to come up with an answer. Technologies are evolving so quickly that equipment and IT infrastructure can be nearly out of date before they are fully functional. Brick-and-mortar healthcare delivery is increasingly threatened by breakthroughs in virtual medicine. Major regulatory changes are underway involving reimbursement, accountability and quality. The very structure of the industry — particularly for care providers — is shifting daily as more and more  players merge, consolidate and innovate.

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January 28, 2012
Regain Control of Your Health Care Costs in 2012 Through Holistic Management

By: Ron Wince, President and CEO, Guidon Performance Solutions – Posted in Western Pennsylvania Hospital News
New healthcare regulation such as the passage of the health insurance exchange, the looming effect of the healthcare reform bill, and the sky rocketing costs of healthcare are among just some of the endless issues that Pennsylvania hospitals are up against.

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January 4, 2012
4 Key Skills OR Leaders Need to Drive Success

By: Sabrina Rodak, Becker's Hospital Review
The cost and revenue associated with operating rooms, as well as its central role in attracting physicians, makes leadership of this department critical for the overall performance of a hospital. An OR leader requires a broad set of skills, ranging from communication with a variety of stakeholders to business acumen. Ron Wince, CEO of management consulting firm Guidon Performance Solutions, describes four key skills that OR leaders need to drive the department and organization’s success.

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December 29, 2011
Five New Year’s Resolutions for Every Hospital in 2012

By: Ron Wince, President and CEO, Guidon Performance Solutions – Posted in Executive Insight/Advance Web Blog
Five New Year’s resolutions for every hospital in 2012 include creating ecosystems/cultures of improvement, adopting a more holistic view, improving the patient experience, embracing IT, and seek innovation.

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December 4, 2011
Hospitals Try Different Approaches to Improving Care at Night

By: Debra Wood, RN, contributor, AMN Healthcare, Inc.
Many patients come into the hospital after hours in critical condition, and others often “take a turn for the worse” during the overnight hours when hospitals are, typically, less well staffed with experienced nurses and physicians. But as health systems adapt to changing patient expectations and robust demands for patient safety, how they deal with night coverage is starting to change.

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November 22, 2011
Control Costs, Improve Care with Holistic Healthcare Management

Guest Post By: Ron Wince, President and CEO, Guidon Performance Solutions – Posted in Fierce HealthFinance
Large and small healthcare systems across the country are facing a tidal wave of management and cost pressures–a confluence of new regulations, oversight, quality requirements–that are about to get even more complex. The impending changes in reimbursement, regulations, and closer scrutiny of patient outcomes are just the tip of the iceberg.

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November 17, 2011
Embracing Holistic Management - Systems Are Too Complicated to Envision Piecemeal

By: Ron Wince, President and CEO, Guidon Performance Solutions – Posted in Payers & Providers
Perhaps no state in the country has done as much for holistic medicine as California. But it’s time to apply the concept of holistic—dealing with entire systems as a whole, not individual parts—to healthcare management as well as medicine.

California’s healthcare systems are facing the same tidal wave of pressures found in other states - a confluence of new regulations, oversight, cost and quality requirements—that is about to get even more complex. The impending changes in reimbursement, regulations, and closer scrutiny of patient outcomes are just the tip of the iceberg.

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November 11, 2011
For Cincinnati Children’s, Feds’ Budget Cuts Will Sting

By: James Ritchie, Staff Reporter, Business Courier
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, and similar institutions nationwide, are facing an economic environment where nothing is sacred – not even funding for pediatric hospitals.

With much of their revenue coming from state and federal sources, children’s hospitals serve as a case study of governments’ ineffectiveness at controlling medical costs, according to a recent report by the nonprofit Kaiser Health News. Frequently enjoying nonprofit status and limited local competition, the business is in the midst of a multibillion-dollar building boom nationwide, with many hospitals, including Cincinnati Children’s, earning millions in profits.

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October 7, 2011
Focus on Healthcare: Hospitals adjust to shorter resident shifts

By: Robert Celaschi, Correspondent – Sacramento Business Journal
New rules shorten hours for first-year residents. Doctors at the region’s teaching hospitals are keeping a close eye on the clock. On July 1, new rules went into effect restricting the number of hours worked by medical residents. They are refinements of rules introduced in 2003 by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. While the limits give residents more time off, hospitals have to find ways to cover those hours and still make sure residents get full training.

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May 12, 2011
Adapting to an Aging Population: A 5-Point Strategy for Providers

By: Ron Wince, Guidon Performance Solutions (Case In Point)
As nearly 10,000 baby boomers turn 65 each day, the strain on America’s healthcare services will continue to grow. An increasing number of age-related ailments will require treatment in our hospitals, and as boomers retire there will be a widening of the gap in nurse and primary care staffing.

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May 10, 2011
ACOs: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

By: Ron Wince, Guidon Performance Solutions (Published in Physicians News Digest)
Although Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) have been discussed for years, health care reform has put them in the spotlight. Now, health care leaders are trying to determine the best way to move forward and transition to this new model of care. While the idea behind ACOs is to get the provider and payer chain working together to provide better-coordinated, more seamless care, the various definitions of an ACO are widely varied. From the perspective of a Medicare/Medicaid patient, there is a major attraction to the current perception of ACOs. In principle, patients should have a reasonable expectation of higher quality care delivered at a lower cost if they choose a provider enrolled in an ACO.

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May 2, 2011
ACOs and the Future of Healthcare

By: Ron Wince, Guidon Performance Solutions (Published in Executive Insight)
ACOs have the potential to improve quality while reducing costs, and business intelligence will be important to the success. With the new healthcare reform legislation, healthcare leaders are under fire to determine the best way to move forward and transition to an Accountable Care Organization (ACO). ACOs were developed a few years ago to coordinate the provider and payer chain so care is better coordinated and more seamless. While there are a few outlined requirements (i.e., must serve a minimum of 5,000 patients; consent to be part of an ACO for at least 3 years; follow a one-sided or two-sided risk model; measure and report more than 65 metrics), the exact model of an ACO has yet to be defined.

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April 26, 2011
From Competitive to Collaborative: 5 Transaction Trends in ACO Development

By: Molly Gamble, Becker's Hospital Review
5 transaction trends in ACO development which include information about mergers, culture, size and scope, small rural providers, and technology plan.

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April 25, 2011
CIOs, Industry Experts React to ACO Proposed Rule Release

By: John DeGaspari, Jennifer Prestigiacomo, and Mark Hagland, Healthcare Informatics
Challenges surrounding integration, quality measures to unfold. Healthcare CIOs and industry experts expressed a variety of views following the March 31 release of the proposed rule for the development of accountable care organizations (ACOs) under federal healthcare reform.

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April 6, 2011
Meeting the Needs of an Aging Population

By: Ron Wince, Guidon Performance Solutions (Published in Executive Insight)
Healthcare leaders must recognize shifting realities and take the necessary steps to address the changes. Some 3 million baby boomers became Medicare eligible this year alone. Efficient and fair Medicare reimbursement is becoming an even greater challenge. Add to that the uncertainty of the full impact of healthcare reform, and it may seem as though hospitals and healthcare facilities are staring into the perfect storm.

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March 2, 2011
Hospital Strategies to Support Accountable Care

By: Debra Wood, AMN Healthcare, Inc.
Aiming to improve Medicare patient outcomes while reducing unnecessary costs, the Affordable Care Act, passed in 2010, includes incentives, such as encouraging creation of accountable care organizations (ACOs), to enhance quality and increase value.

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February 15, 2011
Innovation and Collaboration: Keys to Success When It Comes to PPACA

By: Reba Kieke, Managed Care Outlook
The term “far reaching” has been used more than a few times to describe the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also known as health care reform. PPACA takes aim at some of the hardest topics in health care, including preexisting conditions, questionable insurance practices, barriers to care, fines and penalties for lack of coverage, accountable care organizations — and everything in between.

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February 9, 2011
6 Thoughts on the Impact of the Baby Boomer Generation on Hospitals

By: Jaimie Oh, Becker's Hospital Review
The baby boomer generation started turning 65 years old this January, which means an expected 2.8 million boomers will qualify for Medicare in 2011 alone. Hospitals must remain on guard for the implications stemming from an exploding baby boomer population. Here, Ron Wince, president and CEO of Guidon Performance Solutions, a performance management company, shares six thoughts on what concerns hospitals should have and solutions for addressing those concerns.

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January 14, 2011
WellPoint, Cigna and large hospital chains expected to actively engage in medical home partnerships

By: Jennifer C. Smith-Parker (Washington, DC), Pharmawire
Large insurance companies such as WellPoint and Cigna, as well as large hospital chains, are expected to actively partner with each other and with nursing homes and physician groups in order to create “medical homes” in 2011 and beyond, healthcare experts told Pharmawire.

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January 6, 2011
4 Lean Management Blunders to Avoid

By: Molly Gamble, Becker’s Hospital Review
Although many hospitals sing the praises of lean management, the trendy business philosophy still leaves room for error, particularly if implemented as a half-baked improvement project for certain areas of business. By keeping an eye on the following four problem areas, hospitals can continue to reap lean’s benefits and prevent it from becoming another flavor-of-the-month to hospital administrators, physicians and staff.

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January 6, 2011
Four Tips for Successful EMR Implementation

By: Ron Wince, Guidon Performance Solutions (published in Western Pennsylvania Hospital News)
America’s health system is on the brink of significant transformation. Due to the layered complexity of the health care reform legislation, nearly every participant in the health system will be affected, including providers, patients, payers and government agencies.

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December 31, 2010
Bedrock Principles for Adopting EMR

By: Ron Wince, Guidon Performance Solutions (published in FacilityCare)
The American health system is on the cusp of radical change – much of which will last for decades.  Every aspect of the health care system as we know it will be impacted as patients, providers, payers and government agencies grapple with the complexity of health reform, from reimbursement and payment reform for payers to mandates on measurement and reporting of care outcomes for providers.  Yet one of the most significant changes on the horizon for care providers is the head-long race underway to adopt Electronic Medical Records (EMRs).

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December 21, 2010
Tenet, Health Management Associates, HCA: For-profit hospitals expected to ramp up buys of physician groups in 2011

By: Jennifer C. Smith-Parker (Washington, DC) and Deborah Balshem (Florida), Pharmawire
Hospital chains such as Tenet Healthcare, Community Health Systems, Health Management Associates and HCA are expected to accelerate their acquisitions of physician practices in 2011 and beyond, experts said. The impact of healthcare reform is pushing hospitals to cover their bottom lines, they added.

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October 4, 2010
Britain Scraps Top-Down Plan for Health Data Network

By Pamela Lewis Dolan, American Medical News
Under a new program, physicians and hospitals will be able to use existing IT systems or implement ones of their choosing. As Great Britain debates changes in its National Health Service, one of its first steps was to dump its plans for structuring a national health information network. The decision comes after nearly a decade of struggles to get the network up and running. The program, designed as a top-down mandate that forced physicians to adopt one of two health information technology systems chosen for them by the government, was unpopular among physicians from the start.

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July 1, 2010
Embracing Lean in Microbiology: Labor shortages and the need for faster TAT can be eased by automation and Lean methodologies

By Christian Borjesson, Director, Microbiology, bioMérieux Inc, Marcy l'Etoile, France
If necessity is the mother of invention, the recent surge in technological and process innovations transforming microbiology laboratories reflects the urgent need of hospital microbiologists who face dramatic increases in their workloads. Guidon CEO, Ron Wince talks about providing Lean lab assessments for customers that would help them optimize their value-added services. These assessments result in a roadmap for the microbiology laboratory with recommendations for process adjustments and re-orientation of existing equipment, staffing times and automation of various portions of the microbiology lab continuum.

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June 9, 2010
Including Information Technology Costs In MLR Could Affect IT Spending, Quality

By Sara Hansard, BNA Healthcare
A major issue regulators will have to grapple with in determining how to account for health insurers’ costs is what kind of health information technology should be considered medical costs. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, Pub. L. No. 111-148) requires that starting in 2011 insurers of large group plans spend at least 85 percent of the premiums they collect on expenses that are defined as clinical services and activities that improve health care quality. Insurers of small group plans and individuals must spend at least 80 percent of premiums on those expenses. Guidon CEO, Ron Wince says regulators are likely to prohibit IT costs associated with managing operations from being included in the medical loss ratio.

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June 9, 2010
Pennsylvania Governor: U.S. Will Fall Back Into Recession If Congress Doesn’t Approve Medicaid Assistance

By Jon Ward and Alexandra Cahill, The Daily Caller
Democratic governors on Wednesday ramped up the pressure on Congress to pass a $24 billion extension of aid to states for spending on health-care assistance for the poor and elderly, with one saying that the country will slip back into recession if the money is not handed out. Guidon CEO, Ron Wince says it’s going to be a train wreck if the money doesn’t come through and many states may raise taxes instead of firing workers.

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May 21, 2010
Making Sense of Health Care Reform

By Angela Gonzales, Phoenix Business Journal
Arizona employers are grappling with mind-numbing details of the new health care reform law, wondering how they will be impacted and what they need to do now to prepare. Guidon CEO, Ron Wince says new processes are going to be created.

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April 19, 2010
Survival Guide to Health-System Reform

By Sharon Fitzgerald, Orlando Medical News
The massive health-system reform legislation dubbed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is law, enacting the most sweeping changes in America’s health system since Medicare. Experts say now is the time providers should take a deep, cleansing breath, then jump into action with short-term strategies that could pay off down the road. Guidon CEO, Ron Wince, talks about the reform after the reform – where the big stuff is going to hit everybody. We’ve got to figure out the ‘how’ piece.

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April 1, 2010
Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Arrives: Healthcare Analysts Look at What It Means

By Steve Raphael, Nightingale’s Healthcare News
As the dust settles on the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 that President Barack Obama signed into law on March 23, the winners and losers are beginning to emerge. Guidon CEO, Ron Wince, says that all-in-all, some legislation had to be passed, but It would have been better to have smaller, better pieces of legislation passed over time as he sees premiums going up.

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March 29, 2010
Reaction To Newly Signed National Health-Care Law

By Eric Reinhardt, Business Journal Central New York
Some local stakeholders in the health-insurance industry, and at least one national advocate for small businesses, aren’t satisfied with the newly signed national health-care law. Guidon CEO, Ron Wince, talks about how premiums will continue rising, despite the passage of the health-care law and how the cost of healthcare is not even attacked at all in this.

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March 23, 2010
What Health-Care Reform Means to Indiana

By John Russell, Daniel Lee, and Shari Rudavsky, The Indianapolis Star (Indystar.com)
It’s been called a landmark restructuring of the nation’s health-care landscape. And the legislation, which runs thousands of pages, is reverberating across Indiana. The changes will affect patients, employers, doctors, hospitals, drug companies, medical-device makers and many others. Guidon CEO, Ron Wince, talks about one of the first effects of the reform and how there may be confusion as customers flood insurer phone lines asking what the changes mean for them.

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February 25, 2010
Improving Lab Efficiency: It all boils down to process, process, process

By Ron Wince, President/CEO, Guidon Performance Solutions
"It's not a good time. We'll get to that later." How many times have you heard or said something similar when discussing critical laboratory process improvements? "Later" often turns into never. You may be too overloaded to deploy new initiatives, but waiting only exacerbates the challenges. Processing delays and errors due to overcapacity have surely led to preventable patient deaths--a tragic yet completely unnecessary situation. It takes just days to effectively install efficiency processes utilizing LeanSigma lab tactics and less than a week to positively impact patient outcomes while reducing laboratory stress.

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February 11, 2010
Hospitals Borrowing Efficiency-Improvement Techniques from Industry

By Debra Wood, RN, contributor, AMA Healthcare
Hospitals aiming to work smarter and more efficiently are turning to quality assessment and improvement techniques pioneered in industry, deploying Six Sigma and Lean tools to change cultures and to improve results. CGH Medical Center contracted with Guidon Performance Solutions to help it function more efficiently. Guidon CEO, Ron Wince, encourages staff to view the healthcare experience from a different viewpoint, that of the patient, to map each step, to identify delays and redundancies and then eliminate them.

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February 10, 2010
The Mechanics of Meaningful Use

By David Yaeger, Freelance Writer, For The Record
On December 30, 2009, Health and Human Services (HHS) took another step toward defining the meaningful use of EMR systems. Following months of discussion, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued a notice of proposed rulemaking, known as the meaningful use rule, that outlines the criteria for healthcare organizations to qualify for meaningful use incentive payments. Now in the public comment period, the rule could become official as early as this spring. Guidon CEO, Ron Wince, talks about how the amount of time medical providers will have to begin achieving meaningful use as a major hurdle for those who wish to qualify.

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January 27, 2010
The State Of Health Reform

By Forbes.com
Guidon CEO, Ron Wince, talks about how President Obama should rally around the least controversial, core parts of the health reform bill and force a vote. Those would include spending on electronic health records, new rules to keep insurance companies from discriminating against those with pre-existing conditions, and initiatives to root out waste and fraud.

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January 4, 2010
The Road to EHR Implementation is Paved with Incentives and Challenges

By Managed Care Outlook
On February 17, 2009, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act was enacted as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) to promote the adoption and meaningful use of health information technology (IT). Guidon CEO Ron Wince talks about how there are both positive and negative financial incentives to be compliant with the HITECH Act.

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January 1, 2010
Well-Known Business Efficiency Model Aids Life Safety: Lean Six Sigma tag-teams with traditional healthcare fire protection efforts

By Scott Wallask, Healthcare Life Safety Compliance
Those of you who have heard of the Lean Six Sigma approach to business operations efficiency may be surprised to know there are related applications to fire safety in healthcare facilities. Guidon CEO Ron Wince talks about how he has used Lean Six Sigma to improve physical safety, fire protection, and emergency planning in hospitals.

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December 1, 2009
H1N1 Spreads Across the United States: Tips on Handling the Spike in Demand for Testing

By Clinical Laboratory News
As of early November all indications were that the 2009 H1N1 influenza outbreak was still gaining steam and labs were continuing to do yeoman’s work in handling a huge spike in testing demand. To explore how labs might find some relief from the testing onslaught in a climate of tight economic circumstances and limited staff resources, CLN spoke recently with efficiency expert & CEO Ron Wince.

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December 1, 2009
No Need for Crystal Ball to Foresee Challenges; Recession, reform among drivers of patient access complexity

By Laura L. Merisalo, Healthcare Registration
Ask health care industry experts what patient access professionals can expect in 2010, and the responses may vary but they also will invariably link to service and, in turn, its relationship to nearly all other aspects of patient access responsibilities and processes. Guidon CEO Ron Wince talks about continued focus on shifting costs to patients by employer and how it is among the factors that mandate ongoing change and improvement in front-end processes.

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October 1, 2009
Six Sigma in Health Care: We're Leaving Money On the Table

By Dirk Dusharme, Quality Digest
In this interview with Guidon CEO Ron Wince we explore the growth of the lean, Six Sigma, and similar programs in the health care industry, and how well those programs have been implemented.

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October 1, 2009
Health Care Reform Is Coming: Will You be Ready?

By Laura L. Merisalo, Healthcare Registration
Guidon CEO Ron Wince discusses preparing for health care reform and how it will require a cultural change in how health care delivery organizations function.

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October 1, 2009
Toyota + Motorola = Hospital Savings: Lean Six Sigma an Answer In Difficult Times

By Lisa Jaffe Hubbell, Nightingale’s Healthcare News
An increasing number of healthcare organizations are taking ideas from big manufacturing companies and making them their own utilizing and merging Lean and Six Sigma. Guidon CEO Ron Wince discusses that using the two together is a way to identify errors, improve efficiency, and roll out changes quickly.

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September 25, 2009
Efficiency Paying Off at Moffitt, St. Joe's

By Margie Manning, Tampa Bay Business Journal
Guidon CEO Ron Wince discusses hospitals using Lean and Six Sigma to improve efficiency.

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August 31, 2009
Guaranteed Issue Is Key Component, But May Force Health Plans To Boost Rates

By Steve Davis, Health Plan Week
Guidon CEO Ron Wince discusses the impact of the proposed healthcare reform on health plans.

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July 14, 2009
Ron Wince on Healthcare Reform

Online interview with Ron Wince, President & CEO of Guidon Performance Solutions, OurBlook.com
Ron Wince discusses problems and opportunities with healthcare reform and states that the focus needs to be individual centric, locally managed and competition-based.

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July 1, 2009
Hospitals Advised To Play It Safe When It Comes To H1N1

By Steve Lewis, Healthcare Benchmarks and Quality Improvement
Guidon CEO Ron Wince gives his expert opinion on how Quality Managers can make a difference in being better prepared, noting that problems may exist in areas that have not been focused on such as microbiology labs.

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July 1, 2009
Will ERs in the Deep South Be Ready for Second Wave of Swine Flu?

By Lynne Jeter, Medical News, Inc.
Guidon CEO Ron Wince talks about how hospitals can get better prepared for crisis situations with using Lean and Six Sigma tools which can help provide solutions to dealing with increasing volume and declining resources.

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